


No Tragic Hero

by vials



Category: The Honourable Schoolboy - John Le Carré
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, Original Character(s), Pre-Canon, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-06
Updated: 2017-05-06
Packaged: 2018-10-28 13:16:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10832046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vials/pseuds/vials
Summary: War journalism isn't exactly the most glamorous job in the world, but nothing brings that fact home more than a chance compliment from a new recruit.





	No Tragic Hero

“Fucking disgusting word, isn’t it?” Keller grunted, the second their current companion had left the table to cross the crowded bar on her way to the bathroom. Jerry didn’t quite follow at first, having had one foot in his own world for the last twenty minutes, but after some painstaking backtracking he thought he had an idea of what Keller meant.

“I suppose it all depends on the context,” he said, before giving an almost apologetic smile. “Though, I suppose you could say that about a lot of words, really.”

“Nah,” Keller said, shaking his head. “A lotta words are just good or bad, you know. There are some words that are just bad, and they’re gonna be jarring no matter how you say ‘em.” He took a long drink from his beer. “But then again there are the words that should always be _good_ ,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, “and I suppose that’s where you’re coming from, isn’t it? Words that are meant to be good, that you would hear and think were a compliment, but then the context fucks it all up for you. Yeah, I suppose I’ll give you that one, Westerby.”

Maybe it was the drink talking; ordinarily Jerry wouldn’t have been so candid, but he could feel the alcohol mixing with his empty stomach and it was making his head buzz. He hadn’t thought it was that bad at first, but evidently it had been buzzing loudly enough to distract him from sensible thought, because the words were out of his mouth before he was even fully aware of what he was saying.

“It seems like an insult, doesn’t it?” he asked. “When they say it. I know they don’t mean it like that, but. Oh, I don’t bloody know, I suppose. I feel like I’m stealing the word. I feel like I don’t deserve it.”

“You and me both, buddy,” Keller said, an odd note of sympathy entering his gruff tone, and Jerry shifted slightly in his seat and tried not to think too much about how his skin crawled.

The girl was none the wiser, returning to the table at that moment and squeezing in beside Keller. Her name was Hannah and she was young, still a college student, another one of those bright little hopefuls who still thought there was any kind of difference to be made in war journalism. She was fit but girlish at the same time, so much so that Jerry knew for a fact Keller had judged her the moment he had seen her, not expecting her to be able to keep up with the heat and the bags and the rough terrain, but she had surprised the both of them with her stamina and her lack of complaining. Jerry privately thought he had complained more than she had, but even when they had been stopping for breaks and sitting uncomfortably in whatever shade they could find, the sweat dripping off them, she hadn’t uttered a word of annoyance. She was blonde and wore her hair down to her shoulders, a sprinkling of freckles across her cheeks giving making her look much younger, and Jerry thought that she could probably pass for a schoolgirl if she wore the right clothing. 

“You two look thoroughly miserable,” she said, in her accent that Keller was always drawing attention to – apparently he could hear the difference, Hannah being Canadian, but it all sounded American to Jerry. “I leave you for five minutes and you’re moping into your glasses like a pair of disgruntled city cops. What’s eatin’ ya?”

“Oh, the usual,” Keller said, and she snorted.

“Sharing your war stories?” she asked, and Jerry gave a small smile.

“Not quite,” he said.

“Wondering how you’re going to like some of your own,” Keller put in, and Hannah rolled her eyes.

“Don’t start this again,” she said. “I get it, you can’t wait to see the green little college girl experience her first taste of war. I’m sure it’ll be just as horrific as you hope, but it’s not going to change my mind. This is what I want to do. Hell, the fact I followed you through god knows how many miles of jungle just to sit in another one of your dive bars should tell you I’m committed to this.”

“Trust me, your commitment isn’t in any doubt,” Keller said. “But you never know what you’re going to make of things. You never know what it’s going to do to you. And you do still have a very romanticised view of it all.”

Hannah stared at him for a moment and then gave a small shake of her head, her hair bouncing. She glanced up at Jerry, smiling around her straw as she took a drink.

“What about you?” she asked him. “Gonna translate what old Mr Cryptic here means, or will it be a surprise for later?”

“He means that you can have all the commitment in the world, but sometimes seeing what you’re up against beats it,” Jerry explained, almost apologetically. “And no, before you worry, it’s not because you’re a woman. There’s plenty of women out here that make the cut, you know. It can just happen to anyone who’s new. Hell, we see them go home all the time, don’t we, Keller? It’s a nasty business out here.”

“Nasty indeed,” Keller agreed.

“Sometimes you have to think about what’s best for you, personally,” Jerry continued. “There’s only so long you can see all the misery that happens out here before it starts to… you know.” He tapped the side of his head and gave another thin smile. “And that’s no bloody good. We don’t want people coming out here and ruining themselves. War takes enough life without destroying the lives of people who could walk away if they needed to. It’s an unnecessary loss.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” Hannah said thoughtfully. “Well, I sure hope that doesn’t happen to me. I don’t want to go home. I really do want to make a career of this, and I have a lot at stake, you know? My parents, they lost their _minds_ when I told them I was coming out here. They were convinced I’d end up dead, or something else horrible would happen to me. And they seem to think that all these war journalists are awful monsters.”

“Why would they think that?” Jerry asked, surprised. It was a far cry from what the girl had said shortly before excusing herself for a moment; the thing that had started his and Keller’s conversation in the first place. 

“Well,” Hannah said, and she looked almost embarrassed. “Some of the photographs and the stories that come out, you know? They’re very graphic. I guess some people – my parents included on occasion, unfortunately – wonder why we don’t help more, or how we can stand to see all that and then _tell_ people about it. They don’t realise how complex it is sometimes. How there isn’t anything you can do, how the only thing you _can_ do to help is to spread the word. It’s like what I tell them,” she said, with a shrug and a girlish grin. “I say to them mom, dad, if it wasn’t for these people sending these stories out, would you think about the war at all? Would you give a damn what was going on? And they can never give me a straight answer. It’s because they know they wouldn’t care. It’s because they knew that their only beef with war journalists is the fact that they stop them from being able to ignore what’s happening to people.” She laughed. “It’s a very middle-class attitude they have. I would hate to go home and prove them right; prove that I can’t do it, that it _is_ too nasty out here.”

Keller and Jerry exchanged an amused look. 

“Suppose you can’t argue with that,” Keller said, sounding for a moment a little more relaxed than he had been since this discussion had begun. “I do hope the best for ya, kid. But you know we’re not gonna lie to you. We might seem like grizzled old assholes who are out to scare you and ruin your fun but it’s like Jerry said, we’ve seen a lotta people come and go. It would be unfair to you to not give you a heads up.”

“I appreciate it,” Hannah said, before giving another one of her cheeky smiles. “But it’s like you keep telling me: you can never know how you’re going to react. So maybe I should just see for myself.”

Jerry had thought that he would be able to put the conversation out of his head by the next day – or at least the part of it that had bothered him – and he was surprised and slightly annoyed when he found that he couldn’t. He supposed the best way to deal with it would be to ensure it didn’t get blown out of proportion, which was probably why he brought it up again when the three of them were making their way through yet more jungle, sticking just out of sight of the road but following its loose direction as they walked through the trees. The road was undoubtedly mined, but it didn’t stop Jerry from thoroughly wishing, at least four times an hour, that they could just take a risk and walk on the bloody thing rather than make their way through all these trees. He felt as though he were hiding, like he shouldn’t be there, and he didn’t like that guilt saturating into him and making him feel as though, should they be confronted by anyone, he would panic. It was a very unflattering state of mind to be in, and perhaps part of his reason for bring the previous evening’s conversation up again was also because he needed a distraction.

“Do you really think we’re some kind of heroes?” he asked, suddenly, after they had walked for many minutes in silence. Hannah didn’t seem bothered by the question, and of course she wouldn’t, as she probably didn’t understand the significance of it. Keller, on the other hand, missed a half step and, as he was walking slightly in front of them, Jerry saw his shoulders tense slightly. Apparently only Jerry noticed it, though, because Hannah didn’t make any comment on it and when she answered Jerry’s question there was nothing in her voice to tell him that she thought this was anything more significant than anything else they had spoken about since their journey began.

“I suppose, in a way,” she said, shrugging. Several of the cooking pots tied to her bag clanked together as she did so. “I don’t think in like, a conventional way, you know, like how people see superheroes or the military. But in your own kind of way, I think so.”

“Because we tell the stories?” Jerry asked. Ahead, he could see that Keller was listening, despite his earlier disapproval of the subject matter. 

“Not just that,” Hannah said. “You do get involved sometimes. I know you do. You see some shit, and I know you care. I know that you try to help when you can, I know you probably live with a lot, you know, thinking about the people you couldn’t save or the people you were powerless to help. I think to try in the first place, when everything is so hopeless, is a kind of heroism. Though I’m sure it doesn’t feel like it.”

She was right – that was the crook of their entire conversation last night, and Jerry knew that it had been weighing just as heavily on Keller’s shoulders as it had his own. He could think of nothing to say to Hannah’s words, what with her being right and Jerry not wishing to rip the plasters off a bunch of wounds that weren’t all that old, but thankfully Keller saved him from having to think of anything to say regardless.

“That ain’t why you’re doing this, I hope?” he asked, and he sounded almost defiant. Jerry knew he probably didn’t want to ask her such a thing, didn’t want to look as though he were still trying to maliciously discourage her, but what he was asking was a pet hate of theirs and so Jerry knew he would always seize the opportunity to ensure it wasn’t the case.

“What isn’t the reason I’m not doing it?” Hannah asked, and behind her Jerry could hear the confusion in her voice. 

“You don’t wanna do it because you wanna be some tragic hero or anything?”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake. No, I don’t. What are you two _like_? I can’t compliment you at all without you thinking I’m some starry-eyed moron about to get herself all fucked up on the hardships of life or whatever.”

Jerry gave a thin smile.

“Well,” Keller said, after a slight pause. “I suppose that’s good. Can’t stand that hero-worship, you know? It’s like you said, it sure as hell doesn’t feel that way. Not when you think about the shit you’ve seen, and sure as fuck not when you’re sweating your ass off tramping around in some jungle.”

They all managed to laugh at that; walking through the sticky air, the flies buzzing around them incessantly, it was easy to see the humour in the words. Jerry was sure that even if he was predisposed to feel like a hero during the course of his everyday life, he would never be able to feel that way while drenched in this much sweat. He supposed that was why the flies were beginning to follow them, because they were; there had only been a few of them at first, flitting aimlessly around, but now Jerry found himself swatting at them every few seconds, and he could see that Hannah and Keller were having the same problem.

“I don’t remember there being so _many_ of them before,” Hannah said, sounding a little grumpy by this point; no sooner had the words left her mouth did she have to duck as one flew right at her face. “God! Why are they so dumb?”

“We might be near water,” Jerry said, shrugging. “You get some streams through here, and they’re always disgusting. The flies love it.”

“Full of mud and blood and shit,” Keller put in from the front. “Sure as hell smells like there’s a stream coming up. Ahead of us, too. Hopefully we’ll just be able to cross it and leave the little bastards behind; better than having to walk alongside it for god knows how long.”

Jerry gave a small smile, hoping he was right, but already the unease was beginning to claw at him. He knew that smell all too well, and he could tell from the tense way Keller was holding himself that he knew it, too. It was true what they said – even if you have never smelled it before you knew what it was; Hannah was also reluctant to go much further, and Jerry could see the way she kept rubbing at her nose. The smell did seem to stick there, thick and so strong now that they could taste it. Keller turned his head to the side and spat.

“Gonna warn you now, Hannah,” he said. “You’re about to see your first rotting corpse, mark my words.”

“Human?” Hannah asked, her voice distorted from where she was now holding her nose. 

“Most likely,” Keller said, shrugging. “I mean, could be an animal, but no farm animals would be this deep into the trees and anything smaller that dies out here is eaten up pretty fast. I’d say it’s probably human, considering where we are.”

“That would explain the flies,” Hannah said, swatting at another, and Jerry shook his head and one tried to land on his cheek. “God, that’s gross. These assholes are probably full of rotting flesh and they want to _land_ on us?”

“Hate to break it to you, but flies don’t usually land on anything nice,” Keller said, teasing, and reluctantly they edged forward.

Keller was right, of course; Jerry had known he would be as soon as he had smelled that stench. They didn’t pay too much attention, because really there wasn’t much to see. In terms of having seen it before, Jerry and Keller couldn’t see why this corpse would be any different to the rest. Hannah, for her part, didn’t have much to look at; the body was simply a pile of dark sludge at this point, vaguely resembling someone curled on their side, if they looked closely. Some clothing, soaked in a deep brown liquid, clung to the corpse. There were so many flies crawling over it that the body appeared to move, flickering in and out of focus as they passed by.

“What do you think happened?” Hannah asked, once they were far enough away that the buzzing of the flies wasn’t deafening, and the smell didn’t cling to their lips as thy spoke.

“Could be anything, really,” Jerry said, with a quick shrug. “Injured in a battle and died trying to get away.”

“Escaping a gang of rivals and got lost and died of injury or exposure,” Keller put in.

“Taken out here and murdered,” Jerry suggested. “Though they don’t tend to go in for that, do they? They just murder them all at home.”

“Probably one of the first two, then,” Keller put in. “There’s your war hero, Hannah.”

Hannah pulled a face. “Well, I’m sure glad you guys turned out not to be war heroes, then.”

“I’m sure if we died out here,” Keller said bitterly, “they’d all still want to remember us as such.”

“Better not die, then,” Jerry put in, and the other two laughed. 

The words seemed to hang in the air for Jerry; the idea that his fate was truly out of his hands out here, that if he did die, he would have no say in how people wanted to remember him. The thought had always caused him a great deal of discomfort, but for some reason it was worse out here, sticking to him with more insistence than the heat or the smell. 

It shouldn’t be that important, he thought to himself. It shouldn’t be the main reason he watched his back, or watched his step, or put so much determination into the act of not dying. He supposed for other people that desire came naturally, but for Jerry, who found a lot of natural desires came very unnaturally to him, it was the best he could get. He couldn’t be someone else’s hero if he didn’t die, and there, in the middle of the jungle with the stench of someone else’s corpse clinging to his clothes and skin, it was enough.


End file.
